The Assyrians, despite being one of the indigenous communities at the heart of the Middle East as well as being a particularly vulnerable one at that, are poorly understood. A community that used to number at least a million before the 2003 invasion of Iraq now struggles to hang on to survival. On Siyaset to explain some of the reasons why the community is in the position it is as well as how the community relates to the authorities around them is Reine Hanna, an activist as well as director of the Assyrian Policy Institute.